COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF - President Franklin Roosevelt reviewing troops during World War II. Courtesy: The Franklin Delano Rooesevlet Library and Museum

The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library and Museum

By Linda Lotridge LevinRhode Island Library ReportFranklin Delano Roosevelt revolutionized the American presidency in so many ways: He is the only president to be elected to four terms; his presidency marked the beginning of what today is called “big government” with the expansion of federal agencies and the adoption of a number of social insurance and welfare programs, most notably Social Security; he was the first president to use the airwaves on a regular basis to connect with the citizens; and he was the first president to have his own library to house his papers and memorabilia.

FDR’s political career did not begin when he was elected president. Before World War I he was a state senator in New York; he then served as President Woodrow Wilson’s under secretary of the Navy, and after his partial recovery from polio, he became governor of New York in 1928. Four years later he was elected president of the United States. By 1938 Roosevelt had collected a prodigious amount of materials – speeches, letters, memos, and, of course, clippings from newspapers and magazines. An avid reader and a collector of books and stamps, he enjoyed acquiring curios and bits of memorabilia, which he often placed on his desk in the White House, periodically replacing them with new pieces.

According to an article in Prologue magazine, FDR collected everything: more than a million stamps in 150 matching albums, 1,200 naval prints and paintings, more than 200 fully rigged ship models, 15,000 books, including a number of volumes on naval history. No existing institution, not even the Library of Congress, had room for it all, and FDR could not bear to think of breaking it up.

Mindful of the size and unusual scope of his collections, he admitted, “Future historians will curse as well as praise me.” So, he decided he needed a repository for everything. It would be on the grounds of his childhood home in Hyde Park, New York, a place he cherished and visited as often as he could throughout his presidency.

Mindful of the size and ﻿unusual ﻿scope of his collections, FDR admitted that "Future historians will curse as well as praise me."

The Story of the Library

By April 1937 President Roosevelt had sketched the plans for the building that would house books and memorabilia. He asked his friend Samuel Eliot Morison, a Harvard professor and a Pulitzer Prize-winning naval historian, to help him organize the building’s contents. Otherwise, Roosevelt wrote, “this material will be available (only) in scattered form – throughout libraries and private collections.” The president’s concern was that this would hinder future scholars attempting to write accurate and complete histories of his life. (At that time, once the president left office, his papers and memorabilia went to his survivors, the Library of Congress or other public institutions.) The President and his mother, Sara (she owned the property), set aside sixteen acres on the estate, close by the family’s home on the Hudson River a short drive north of Poughkeepsie. He hired an architect to design the building, but supervised the construction himself as often as he could get away from Washington.

It was FDR’s friends who raised the money to construct the library-museum, setting a precedent for later presidents looking to finance their libraries. In the end, 28,000 people collected $376,000. That figure in today’s dollars would be more than $6 million, which is roughly what

FDR’s ORIGINAL sketch for the Roosevelt Library, April 12, 1937. Courtesy: Roosevelt Library

President Bill Clinton’s Library in Little Rock, Arkansas cost.Ground was broken on September 14, 1939, and the library-museum was dedicated on June 30, 1941, just five months before the United States entered World War II. FDR then donated the building and its contents to the federal government, to be administered by the National Archives. The lovely little two-story building is built of Hudson Valley fieldstone with a steeply sloping roof, a style similar to that of the Dutch Colonial buildings in the area. Originally the library was a long rectangle, but in 1972 additions were built on either side to house the papers of FDR’s wife, Eleanor. With only a few modest changes, the library and museum remained unchanged until the winter of 2009, when it closed for extensive interior renovations to bring the archives and museum up to National Archives standards for the long-term preservation of historic collections. This included new drainage, plumbing, and roofing systems and new electrical, security, fire protection, and other systems. Fittingly, for a building designed by a president who spent almost half his life in a wheelchair, the renovations made the building fully accessible to visitors in wheelchairs. A public ceremony rededicated the completed project on June 30, 2013.

You could, of course, simply go online at www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu. to find out what is in there. But a visit is mandatory if you really want to explore the life and presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The museum’s newly configured exhibits were financed with $6 million in private funds that were raised for the renovation by the Roosevelt Institute, the Library’s private, nonprofit partner.

The Exhibits

Now the exhibits, some of which are interactive, incorporate Eleanor’s role as they tell the story of the Roosevelt presidency. The museum, according to its website, is “immersive,” allowing visitors, both children and adults, to use touch screens to “listen” to key documents being discussed by historians, and to see the disabled president’s crutches and lift a lever to feel how much weight he had to haul around when he used them. In fact, this is the first time the museum has really explored the president’s disability. Throughout Roosevelt’s presidency, his staff, in particular his press secretary, Stephen T. Early, insisted that the chief executive never be shown either in his wheelchair or using his crutches, images that might make him appear weak or less than capable of running the country. As difficult as it is to comprehend in today’s wildly media-centric society, the press photographers and movie makers of FDR’s day readily agreed to the demand. Thus, there are only a few photos today of the president in his wheelchair or “standing” on his crutches.

In addition to the crutches, another of the most powerful exhibits is FDR’s Ford Phaeton, made especially for him with hand controls. The president loved nothing more than to drive visitors around his Hyde Park estate in this hunter green convertible, and as you look at it it you can feel the presence of the

disabled man enjoying a moment of normality. Roosevelt and his press secretary came up with the idea of having the president speak over the radio on topics of great importance to the public, something they dubbed Fireside Chats. These “chats” were wildly popular with Americans during the dark days of the Depression, and visitors to the library can sit in an area complete with period furnishings and a radio and listen to the president speaking to the country.

RARE VIEW - Roosevelt fishing from a canoe near the polio treatment center he founded in Warm Springs, Georgia. His leg braces are visible. Courtesy: Roosevelt Library

If you want more information about FDR and his presidency, you should head upstairs to the research room. Anyone can obtain credentials. (Ask at the front desk in the museum.) The research room is where you will find the scholars who write the books and articles about almost any aspect of Roosevelt, his family, his White House staff, his presidential advisers, and just about anyone who ever had a connection to him.

FDR AS SPHINX - This paper-mache caricature was created for a skit during the 1939 Gridiron satirical review put on by White House news correspondents. It poked fun at FDR's prolonged refusal to say whether he'd run for a third term. FDR got such a kick out of it that he sent it to his presidental library. Courtesy: Roosevelt Library.

If you think your great-grandfather might have written a letter to FDR, it’s possible that the letter could be in the library’s archives. So ask one of the helpful archivists to hunt it up for you. Or you may want to look at documents relating to the Depression and how it affected your community or your state. Or sit down and read through some of the vast collection of books, many of which belonged to FDR himself. You could end up finding enough information about some topic you are interested in to write your own article or book. Researchers should be pleased to know that each year the library puts more and more documents from the archives online so anyone can use them.

(See the website to find out what is available: www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu.)When you complete your visit to the library and museum, step next door to the Wallace Center, named for Henry A. Wallace, FDR’s secretary of agriculture and then the vice president during his third term. Opened in 2003, the modern building contains an auditorium where historians and others give talks videotaped for C-Span. Smaller rooms host talks and other activities. The lobby features a mosaic tile map on the floor depicting the town of Hyde Park as FDR would have remembered it. As you walk around the map, you will see why the 32nd president loved the area.

Have lunch or a snack in Mrs. Nesbitt’s Café, named for Henrietta Nesbitt, a neighbor of the Roosevelts who went to the White House as their cook. As you munch on a sandwich or a salad, consider that ironically FDR found her food, at best, pedestrian and often complained when he was forced to eat a tuna salad for his lunch day after day. Sadly, her dinners were not much more creative, but Eleanor Roosevelt liked her and felt she was simply doing

"ELEANOR & FRANKLIN" - This sculpture of the first couple greets visitors at the Wallace Visitor Center. Courtesy: Roosevelt Library

her best during the Depression to keep the White House meals on a budget. After lunch you go across the lobby to the New Deal Store to buy a book about the Roosevelts or a few souvenirs of your visit. But save the afternoon to tour the Roosevelt home, a short walk from the library and the Wallace Center.

The Roosevelt Home

The original part of the house known as Springwood was built in the early 19th century in the Federal style and then was remodeled in the Italianate style of architecture in the middle of that century. Until her death in 1941, the house was owned by FDR’s mother, Sara. His father had died 40 years earlier while Franklin was a student at Harvard. When he and Eleanor married, they lived in a brownstone in Manhattan, but they spent weekends at Springwood. As Franklin and Eleanor’s family grew and his involvement in politics expanded, he and Sara had two large fieldstone additions built on either side of the house, giving it the look and feel of a country estate. Even after he became president, FDR as often as he could took the train (he hated flying) from Washington to this home on the Hudson that he loved so dearly. During those years, the house saw a procession of visitors from kings, queens and princesses to prime ministers and a host of politicians.

SPRINGWOOD - The Roosevelt family home. Courtesy: Roosevelt Library

Some sought asylum from the war in Europe as the president’s guests; others came north from the capital to talk business in a more relaxed setting. As you walk through the house, you can imagine Winston Churchill and FDR, drinks in hand, seated in front of the fireplace in the library, plotting war strategies. On the second floor you will see FDR’s bedroom, his iron braces by his bed, and you can feel his presence. Little has been changed in the home since the Roosevelt family lived there, and the guided tour leaves you with a strong sense of the role they and their home played in 20th century history. After you leave the house, be sure to visit the nearby Rose Garden, where Franklin and Eleanor are buried.

THE STONE marking the graves of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Courtesy: Roosevelt Library

After his mother died, FDR donated the estate to the American people on condition that his family maintained a lifetime right to use of the property. Shortly after he died, the family transferred the estate to the U.S. Department of the Interior. Today the home is a national historic site and receives more than 100,000 visitors annually.

Visiting the Library

If you would like to do research at the Library, you might want to begin by calling the research room (845 486-1142) to ask if they have what you are looking for. For additional information about using the research facilities, go to http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/contact.html.

Additional Information

For additional information about the Roosevelt Library and Museum and the Home, see the following sources used for this article:

New York Times, November 20, 1939: “Placed in Cornerstone: Papers Dealing with Roosevelt Library Put in Receptacle.”

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